Another mandarin milestone

The other evening I turned on the air conditioner in my bedroom.  I decreased the temperature by one degree and I increased the wind speed for the perfect sleeping conditions.  Then I really looked at the air conditioner remote control.

I realized that I could read every character that was on it and I understood the meaning.

Wow.

Red letter day.

I remember when I first learned the character for “on” – 开； then I remember when I learned “off” – 关.  That was during the first four week intensive Chinese course I took in December of 2007.  I don’t remember where the rest of the characters came from – sometime in the last four years they joined the ever lengthening list in my brain.  I only know that when I moved into this apartment nearly four years ago the only button I was sure of was the on/off one.

I have typically had my mandarin milestones in the fall – October time period, but this year it came a bit early.  Maybe some day I will be fluent in Chinese.

Had any milestones with a language lately or do you remember a major milestone in the past?  I really consider Chinese three different languages, listening/speaking, reading and writing.  This was a big step for me in the middle category.